The famous, radical study
LAING, R.D., and A. ESTERSON. Sanity, Madness and the Family. London: Tavistock Publications. 1964.
8vo. Original black cloth, title lettered in silver to spine, upper edge stained lilac, with original brown dust jacket with white lettering; pp. xii, 272; minimal rubbing to spine ends, small flaws to extremities of jacket; near fine.
Second edition, inscribed by Laing “To Mike/From Ronnie/July 1970” to the front free endpaper.
In the 1960s, Glaswegian psychiatrist R.D. Laing rose to international prominence – not only as Scotland’s most recognisable figure in his field, but as one of the most famous and controversial therapists of his generation. Nicknamed the “high priest of anti-psychiatry”, Laing was a central figure in the counterculture movement, known for challenging conventional psychiatric practices and beliefs.
His early clinical experience at Gartnavel Hospital, where he helped establish an experimental unit for patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, formed the basis for his groundbreaking first book, The Divided Self (1960). It became an international sensation, selling over 700,000 copies in the UK alone, and introduced a radically different, existential approach to mental illness.
Sanity, Madness and the Family (1964), co-authored with Aaron Esterson, examined the lives of eleven young women diagnosed with schizophrenia, focusing on the complex dynamics within their families. Based on research that began in 1958, the book challenged the medical orthodoxy of the time by suggesting that the symptoms of schizophrenia might be deeply rooted in family interactions, rather than in biological dysfunction alone.
At the time of publication, it was the only major study to explore schizophrenia through detailed case studies of family life. Its implicit suggestion that parental behaviour might contribute to the onset of psychosis provoked intense controversy and professional backlash. The dominant view then, as now, was that schizophrenia should be treated as a primarily medical condition.
Despite – or because of – its controversy, Sanity, Madness and the Family remains a landmark in psychiatric literature. It exposed the contested nature of psychosis and questioned the very boundaries between mental health and illness, sanity and madness.
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